[1] After being imprisoned in France, Hugo Eberlein was in exile in Moscow in Hotel Lux from autumn 1936 and, like many other German emigrants in the Soviet Union, became a victim of Stalin's Great Terror.

[4] His urn was interred in the grave complex for victims of fascism and those persecuted by the Nazi regime at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde, where his father Hugo Eberlein is also commemorated.

[2][8] In 1983, almost at retirement age, he surprisingly became the First Secretary of the SED in Bezirk Magdeburg,[2][3][9][10] succeeding Kurt Tiedke, who became principal of the "Karl Marx" Party Academy,[11] and held this position until 1989.

This was likely due to his friendship with General Secretary Erich Honecker and the political significance of the Bezirk Magdeburg because of its long western border with West Germany.

[10] Though in office for less than a month, the Central Party Control Commission made numerous crucial decisions in that time, among other things expelling Honecker[12] and Günter Mittag[14] while rehabilitating Robert Havemann and Rudolf Herrnstadt.